TEL AVIV – Muslims in the West must renounce extremism and fanatical ideas and start expressing more gratitude towards their host nations, a Jordanian journalist wrote in an Arabic-language oped translated this week by MEMRI.
Writing in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, former editor-in-chief of the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad Mousa Barhouma condemns the wave of terror attacks carried out in the name of Islam that have plagued the West in recent years, and says that it is incumbent upon Muslims to change their ways lest the West eventually retaliate.
Barhouma asserts that “most Muslims in the West practice Islam based on the textual interpretations” from “benighted religious scholars” in their former nations “before immigrating to the ‘lands of heresy’ – lands that granted them the freedom to practice their faith.”
He adds that these Muslims “make no effort to create a Muslim ethic that suits their new surroundings,” preferring instead to stick to the “fanatical and demagogical” ideals of their past.
“The minds of these deceived and brainwashed young men are filled not with the noble basic values of the faith, but with the discourse of hate,” he writes.
He continues by noting that Western countries are often naïve in the belief that religions “bring people happiness, spread grace and love, establish peace, and promote life.” Islamists repay the West’s benevolence with “suicide belts, car bombs, and trucks that crush everything in their path, without discrimination and without mercy.”
“Indeed, it is not a religion [at all] but rather a destructive militant ideology that hates life and enjoys scenes of murder,” he asserts.
He ends by observing that if Muslims in the West do not “save themselves” by ridding themselves of extremism, the West will one day retaliate and those Muslims themselves “will be the ones to be crushed under the wheels of a truck, and there will be no shortage of people to rejoice at the sight.”